"When she walks to market, she must gather up her fat just as another woman gathers up her skirts, daintily pinching it between her fingers and hooking it over her wrists. Matilde's fat moves about her gracefully, sighing and rustling with her every gesture. She walks as if enveloped by a dense storm cloud, from which the real, sylph-like Matilde is waiting to emerge, blinding as a sunbeam." Part 1, pg. 2

"The musician methodically withdrew the carving knife from where it was burrowed in the turkey's haunches, which sputtered in protest as he pulled it out. Rising with a sigh, he trundled down the length of the dinner table and the room seemed to quiver with his seismic grace. The knife dripped fowl juices onto the tiles, leaving a trail of congealing fat as if M. Marais, like Hansel lost in the woods, might need to find his way...